Challenges are what everyone in this world faces. No matter a baby, a kid, a teenager, a youth, an adult or even the senior citizen, everyone encounters challenges in their life. For instance, the biggest challenge for a new-born baby is to learn to stand up and walk. For a kid, the biggest challenge would be saying goodbye to parents without crying when entering kindergarten. As for youngsters, we face many challenges us too. However, why every adult around us is able to overcome all the challenges? Simply because they believed what James Ulman, a writer and famous mountain climber said, “Challenge is the core and mainspring of all human action. If there is an ocean, we cross it. If there is a disease, we cure it. If there is a wrong, we right it. If there is a record, we break it. And if there is a mountain, we climb it.” Hence, let us discover what are the challenges that the young ones face in today’s life.

A.B.C.D.E
One of the most common challenges is peer pressure. “ABCDE” are what teenagers encounter in peer pressure. ‘A’ stands for alcohol, ‘B’ stands for bully, ‘C’ stands for cigarette, ‘D’ stands for drugs whereas ‘E’ stands for excellence. Among all five, the only challenge which will bring about good effects is ‘E’, excellence. Alcohol is a powerful and easily available drugs. Due to anxiety and fear of being teased, some youths are not able to resist alcohol. According to the Ministry of Health, alcohol leads to various negative impacts. The most common ones are unsafe sex and brain damages. According to Global Status Report on Alcohol, 2004, alcohol is one of the biggest factor which causes brain damages among youths. In March 25, 2008, a case of alcohol intoxication happened in the United States. Julia Gonzalez, 16, was found dead of alcohol poisoning due to excessive consumption. Next, bully cases among youths. Bully is a very rampant and serious issue in our society. Some of the reasons that lead to bully include lack of attention from parents and video games. Based on a research done by University of California in the 90s, they claimed that peer pressure is the biggest reason why bully cases are on the rise. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), in their article published in 2005, 70% of high school students reported they have been bullied.

On the other hand, in terms of cigarette, youngsters are often badly influenced due to peer pressure. Anxiety, feeling of stylish, cool and trendy are among the causes of teenagers start to smoke. Statistics has shown that smoking is among the first steps that lead to drugs. In the United States of America, 3.1 million teenagers start smoking during secondary school, reported by American Lungs Association (ALA). Youths are found to be very easily influenced by friends. There is a Chinese proverb which goes, “He who stays vermillion gets stained red, he who stays near ink gets stained black”. This means that one takes the behaviour of one’s company. Thus, if a youth mixes around with friends who are of bad behaviours, he or she will definitely be influenced. Moreover, drugs are also rampant among youths. Drugs are indeed poisoning, addictive and illegal. However, youths take drugs as they believe drugs help releasing stress. Although this is untrue, they insist on doing it because they believe their friends more. Therefore, (A) Alcohol, (B) Bully, (C) Cigarette and (D) Drugs are all negative impacts caused by peer pressure.

Each coin has two sides. So, one of the positive impacts brought about by peer pressure that I would love to highlight here is (E) Excellence. According to the eminent writer, Jody Rosenburg, in his book ‘Join the Club’, he said that peer pressure is indeed a good strategy to improve one’s academic performance after conducting studies in numerous universities, mainly in United States, Japan, Norway and Brazil. For instance, youths tend to feel unhappy when their friends score better in examinations. Hence, this will make them strive harder in order to get better results. This also indirectly helps them to create challenges among peers and gain improvements. According to a psychology test done by Dr. James Dobson, a psychologist and writer, he concluded that youths gain more courage when they are with friends. They always think what the other peers are doing is right. Youths also feel difficult to stand alone, afraid of being rejected and lack of confidence when dealing with new environment. Thus, excellence is the only advantage due to peer pressure.

LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS
Another very popular challenge youths face is love. Nowadays, youths always misunderstand what ‘love’ and ‘relationships’ are. As long as they feel attracted with each other, they consider that as love. There are numerous disadvantages due to immaturity in dealing with love. One of the most common disadvantages is unwanted pregnancy. World Health Organisation (WHO) claimed that in 2008-2009, approximately 9% of 14-year-old, 18% of 15 to 17-year-olds and 22% of 18 to 19-year-olds girls experience pregnancies a year. Baby dumping cases in Malaysia has also shown a drastic increase, reported by Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, Deputy Secretary-General, Harjeet Kaur, with the figure of 91 in 2010 to 98 cases in 2011. “Baby dumping and unwanted pregnancies also deteriorate youth’s academic performance”, she said. Therefore, love and relationships are challenges that youths encounter in their growing process.

EXCEL IN BOTH CURRICULAR & CO-CURRICULAR
Next, youths face even bigger challenges when they are urged to excel in both curriculum and co-curriculum. Parents nowadays are indeed demanding when it comes to results and co-curriculum achievements. This happens because to ensure their children to get a scholarship to further study, it is getting more difficult and competitive. At the same time, youths are having a very heavy education system. They have to study at school for at least 8 hours a day. Furthermore, they are also involved in other co-curricular activities after school. This will not only cause them to be unable to allocate time for revision, it also causes exhaustiveness. For example, I am at school since 7.00 a.m. Classes end at 2.30 p.m. and carried out from 3.30 to 5.30 p.m. The total hours for me to be at school is approximately 9 hours. On Wednesdays, students even have to return to the school in the evening to join co-curriculum activities. Hence, excellence in both academic and co-curriculum is indeed a big task to be accomplished by youths.

TO OVERCOME: THE ROLES OF SCHOOLS & PARENTS
One of the ways that parents can play their role is by monitoring their children. According to Datuk Dr Fadzillah Kamsah, parents’ attention towards their children is indeed important in disciplining them. Parents should try their very best to spend quality time with their children and inculcate moral and religious values when they are still young as there is a saying which goes ‘strike while the iron is still hot.’ For instance, advice should be given to them and parents have to monitor their children’s behavior. This is essential so that parents are clear with their children’s development from time to time in order for them to take measures or steps of prevention can be taken at early stage as prevention is better than cure. On top of that, schools have to play their role as well. I, who was the Head Prefect of the school always strive hard to encourage the Prefectorial Board to try to understand students who have disciplinary problems in schools. At the same time, counselors ought to always be ready to listen to them and find out their thoughts and opinions. These are some of the steps which I believe to be effective in handling the challenges that youths face.

LET’S OVERCOME THEM!
“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze us, they are supposed to help us discover who we are”, said by Bernice Johnson Reagon, a singer, compose, scholar cum social activist. Therefore, we, as youths should never be afraid to take up challenges throughout our growing process. Youths themselves ought to always strive hard to overcome every obstacle in life. Always believe that ‘When there is a will, there is a way.’ In a nutshell, one should never feel hopeless and always be optimistic to face life challenges.

This article was written by Ng Ray Man. Ray Man was a Head Prefect, a national-level debater and a straight-A scorer all his life. He shares his thoughts on excelling in academic and extracurricular activities in his guest posts for Peekabook.